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On the eve of International Women’s Day 2016, a talk was given by MacMillan Cancer Support chief executive Lynda Thomas at the Principality Stadium for Cardiff Business Club.

A few days before I’d seen the talk advertised online. My wife is the PR Manager for a charity, so I thought she’d be interested and it would make a cheap evening out.

Lynda Thomas is originally from these parts of South Wales, and she proudly wears her Welshness. It was astute to express this at Cardiff Business Club right from the start, especially during the week of an England-Wales rugby match. Inside the iconic, recently renamed stadium, the crowd was with her immediately.

Recently I’ve seen a headline or two suggesting Twitter is dying. Those pieces might suggest that it’s for the following reasons. I haven’t clicked many links to find out, but thought I’d add some thoughts here in the hope that there is a groundswell of consensus around the issue.

Apparently over in the US Twitter is really struggling. It failed to add any new users for the second quarter in a row. At the end of September, Twitter had a core audience of 307 million active users, adding just 3 million worldwide during the three months since June. Mass market appeal it seems is no longer there.

Conferences are all about ideas. They are about sharing experience, interpretations of experiences and new understanding. They’re about exchanges and transfers, inspiration and encouragement, networking and collaboration.

Conferences are about a whole bunch of things which are apparently hard to neatly summarise.

As CEO, you’re confident that your social media and content marketing is sorted. Someone handles your Twitter and Facebook, your blogging strategy, press releases, brand awareness and the general public face of the company. Maybe you don’t totally understand it, but you trust them to do whatever they think is best.

There’s a growing climate of casual acceptance in content marketing, which borders on complacency. While the various facets of social marketing are rapidly maturing, acquiring some kind of critical mass and effectively integrating with more traditional digital marketing tools, it still appears enough for many to just know the box is ticked.Continue reading →

After attending the season’s launch earlier in the month, last week I took another trip to the salubrious surroundings of St David’s Hotel in Cardiff Bay for a Cardiff Business Club event.

Kicking off the season was Jackie Brock-Doyle OBE, CEO of Good Relations Group. When you’re credited with bringing the Olympics to London and having a large say in overseeing communications for the whole thing, as well as for the Paralympics, Commonwealth and Invictus Games: that deserves respect.Continue reading →

Today’s virtual, digital world usually creates a comfortable distance for users. This is a comfortable distance that suddenly disappears when you’re actually in a conference room with other people. If you fall into a conversation and grow bored, you can’t click or swipe for them to go away.

Cardiff University’s latest Innovation Network event presented Stephen Fear, a lifelong entrepreneur who set up his first company in 1969, aged 16. He bought a cleaning formula from an American company advertising in the Exchange & Mart, after claiming a council estate phone box as his personal office for transatlantic calls.

Stephen Fear calmly took to the lectern on an unsettled autumn evening which blustered and spat outside. His was a sturdy and unflashy presence: smart business suit, no tie, a gentle West Country lilt to his voice suggestive of the Bristol roots.

In a digital world where everything is social and connected, will individual, standalone websites forever remain essential business tools? Or might they come to be replaced by content marketing and social platforms?

What value is there in having a website in today’s frenzied social content super highway? It might seem oddly simplistic, but the question is relevant.

Change is often met with a wall of anguished screams, especially online when high volume platforms are concerned – namely Facebook and Twitter. Changing something as important in so many digital photography lives as Flickr, that was bound to be a challenge.

Yesterday evening Chris Moss of FAMOSS ideas consultancy became the latest to take the stage at Cardiff Business School’s Public Lecture Series. Moss spent 8 years as Marketing Director of Virgin Atlantic, developing the company from single aircraft to international brand. He founded the Orange brand as Marketing Director and as CEO of 118118, grew the business from 5 to 5000 employees, achieving a billion dollar valuation and an international roll-out.

Any sympathy extended for having a name that lends itself to terrible puns should be saved. It hasn’t held him back.